The present disclosure relates to the field of computing hardware, and specifically to hardware peripheral devices. Still more specifically, the present disclosure relates to a design structure for selectively accessing hardware peripheral devices.
Serial peripheral interface (SPI) is a serial interface that exchanges data between two devices, commonly known as a master device and a slave device. As their names suggest, the master device initiates a communication session with the slave device, which is then able to transmit data back to the master device as long as the session is active. The master device may be implemented in various forms including a Multipoint Control Unit (MCU). The MCU couples one or more slave devices to another device (e.g., a processor), or the MCU may be the terminus for the connection. Examples of slave devices include, but are not limited to, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a digital-to-analog converter (DAC), a memory (e.g., an EPROM, an EEPROM, FLASH memory, etc.), a sensor (e.g., a thermometer, a pressure gauge, etc.), etc. In addition, the master device and the slave device(s) may be part of a system-on-a chip (SOC) processor, as well as other types of very large-scale integrated circuit (VLSIC) designs.